Queen Victoria's Journals launched online

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS ISSUED BY THE PRESS SECRETARY TO THE QUEEN

24 May 2012

Queen Victoria's Journals and other Material goes online

The complete collection of Queen Victoria’s Journals is now available online. Launched on the anniversary of Queen Victoria’s birthday by HM The Queen at Buckingham Palace, the new website is part of a digitisation programme to make historic documents from the Royal Archives widely available for the first time.

The digitisation of 141 volumes of Queen Victoria’s private diaries has been carried out as a partnership between the Royal Archives, Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University and the online publisher, ProQuest. They can be accessed at www.queenvictoriasjournals.org

In addition to the digitisation of Queen Victoria’s Journals, the Royal Archives has undertaken the following projects in Diamond Jubilee year:

- An online partnership project has been undertaken with www.findmypast.co.uk so that the public may trace their ancestors who have worked for the Royal Household. Free access to the records, which range from the seventeenth century to 1920, will also be available in the National Archives’ Reading Rooms in Kew.

- A selection of Queen Victoria’s school copy books will be available for viewing at the National Archives at Kew for the first time.

- “Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Scrapbook”, a website focused on Queen Victoria’s life and reign, including her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, was launched by Buckingham Palace in April 2012. It contains documents from the Royal Archives, paintings and photographs from the Royal Collection, as well as audio and film clips. See www.queen-victorias-scrapbook.org.

- Over the Diamond Jubilee period, the Twitter account @QueenVictoriaRI will tweet selected excerpts from Queen Victoria’s Journals, illustrated by links to photographs, paintings and original documents. This account will run from 24th May until 7th June.

The release of this material is part of a long term programme to digitise and open up important historical material contained in this private archive. It is expected that these documents and materials will be of general public interest, and of particular value to universities, schools, academics and authors both in the UK and the Commonwealth, and to those wanting to trace their family history.